


Maybe our real soulmates were the ones we made along the way

by thunder_fox_7



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Aviophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt James T. Kirk, Emotionally Hurt Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It's the one with the strings, James T. Kirk Needs a Hug, James T. Kirk is a Good Friend, Leonard "Bones" McCoy Needs a Hug, Leonard "Bones" McCoy is a Good Friend, My First Work in This Fandom, Soulmate AU, Spock Needs a Hug (Star Trek), Spock is a Good Friend (Star Trek), but theres a tWIST, could be read as pre-slash, don't worry they all get their hugs, how is that not a tag? i feel like that should be a tag, i guess, no beta we die like men, other colors represent other types of relationships, rated for language (it's mostly bones though), really it's just supposed to be them being very close friends but to each his own i suppose, red strings symbolize romantic soulmates, sometimes the strings lead you to your soulmate, sometimes they just connect you to them after you've met them/bonded with them, that's the twist, there's an almost panic attack, we're ignoring when Jim's actual birthday is for the sake of plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24123850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_fox_7/pseuds/thunder_fox_7
Summary: Leonard had always been distantly fascinated with soulmates. He remembers being so excited for his string to appear, remembers how disappointed he was each day for years when it didn’t.OrSoulmates are something that come in many forms, though the most frequent are when souls are tied together from birth. That doesn't mean they can't appear later in life - it's just uncommon. Whatever, it's not like Bones, Jim, and Spock ever did things the "normal" way, anyways.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock, James T. Kirk & Spock, Jocelyn McCoy/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	1. an Introduction, a relationship, and a new beginning

Leonard had always been distantly fascinated with soulmates, with all the forms they could take, the bonds they made, the way completely different people would be connected by their strings despite being so different from each other. His parents were the perfect couple, bound to each other by the red string tied to their fingers. He used to study soulmates, read all the stories about them, watch the people walking by on the street , their rainbow-colored strings trailing behind them, twisting and turning yet never tangling. He remembers how the kids around him would play with theirs, playing cat’s cradle and jumping rope. He remembers being so excited for his string to appear, remembers how disappointed he was each day for years when it didn’t.

One day, years later, when he was in med school, he’d met perhaps the prettiest woman he’d ever laid eyes. He’d been walking down the hall, absorbed in his PADD, when he’d accidentally bumped into her and knocked her over. He’d apologized profusely, and she’d laughed, telling him not to worry about it. Said he owed her now, how about he took her to dinner? He’d taken her up on that, saying it was only proper that he apologized properly. She’d introduced herself, entering her name and number into his PADD. Jocelyn Darnell (xxx) xxx- xxx. One thing led to another, and the next thing either of them knew, they were married.

Neither of them had a string tied around their finger, but they didn’t need one to be happy, or so he’d thought. They’d had a daughter, the most beautiful being on the planet, his pride and joy. They’d named her Joanna, and with her they’d had the perfect family. It was a few years later, on Joanna’s sixth birthday, that Jocelyn came home with a new addition- a striking red string was tied around her right ring finger. It wasn’t impossible for strings to appear later in life, it was actually more common than not. The only catch was that for a string that shade of red to just appear one day, it’s owners had to have been building a close relationship for some time beforehand. 

The real problem was that the other end was not connected to Leonard.

She’d known he knew what it meant, and she gave him the most sorrowful and apologetic look. If it were not for the fact that Joanna was there, and it was her birthday, he would have exploded right then and there. Instead, they put on a smile and purposefully ignored the vibrant red elephant in the room. It was later that night, with Joanna safely in bed, that he quietly addressed it.

“Who’s the other end connected to, Jocelyn?”

She’d sighed quietly, before practically whispering, “An old sweetheart of mine-- Clay. I’m sorry Leonard, I-” He cut her off before she continued.

“Why, Jocelyn? I thought we were happy. Was this not enough?”

“It’s not that. It’s just-- I don’t know. I’m sorry, Len. I’m so, so sorry.” She’d burst into tears at that. He’d wanted to hold her, to tell her it was ok, but he knew it wasn’t true. Instead, he’d quietly gotten up and left the room, tears threatening to spill out of his own eyes. 

They’d gotten divorced only a few months after that, and Jocelyn had taken everything from him. He’d gone from having it all to having barely more than the clothes on his back in the span of a few short months. The worst was that she’d taken Joanna away from him. He’d rather she’d taken his life, but there was approximately jack-shit he could do about it. The judge had sided with her, because of course he had. Many things had changed over the centuries, but the court’s tendency to side with the mother when it came to custody was not one of them.

He’d had nowhere to go, so he went to Starfleet. No better way to run from your problems than literally leaving the plant, despite your hatred for space, right? Right. That was what he’d told himself, hiding away in the shuttle bathroom, before one of the Starfleet officials in charge of the transport found him and forced him to sit down next to some punk kid with a busted up face.

There was something about that kid that made him open up a bit, despite not even knowing his name. Maybe it was because they were the only people on the shuttle not wearing cadet reds, maybe it was something more. Hell if Leonard knew-- or cared, really. He’d honestly expected to never see the kid again, after the shuttle. Boy, how wrong he was.

Barely an hour later, after having found the dorm he was going to be living in for the foreseeable future, Leonard was laying on the bed and contemplating whether it was worth it to open a new bottle of bourbon, when the door opened and his new roommate walked in.

“Hey, Bones!”

Leonard sat up, surprised at both the stupid name and the person who’d said it. He wanted to ask why the kid was there and how they’d wound up in the same room, but what came out instead was, “Bones? Where the hell did you get that one?”

“From on the shuttle. You said that all you had left were your bones,” The kid (Jim, Leonard now remembered) explained.

“It’s a stupid name.”

“What would you rather I called you?”

“Leonard works just fine. No point in changin’ it.”

“Yeah, but Leonard is boring. How about Lenny?”

“First off, _hey_. Second off, hell no.”

“Alrighty, then, Bones.”

Leonard grumbled again, but frankly Bones sounded a lot better than goddamn _Lenny_. Jim just smirked, knowing full well he’d won.


	2. a birthday and a shoulder to lean on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another moment of Jim and Leonard's friendship, this time taking place on Jim's birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short, but I honestly don't know how else to cut it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It didn’t take long for Leonard to figure out that Jim was really just a trouble magnet with a charming smile. In hindsight, he probably should have figured that out the moment he’d met the kid on the shuttle, seeing as he’d had injuries obviously from a fight on his face, but Leonard had been pretty drunk, so he cut himself some slack.

He kind of wished he was drunk right now, though. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about his stupid roommate. Instead, he was completely sober, holding a half-drunk half-injured Jim up, doing his damnedest not to chew the kid out from worry quite yet. That was for when they got back to their room.

Jim was leaning heavily into him, oddly silent. There was a nasty bruise forming over one of his eyes and his nose was bleeding. Leonard was sure that there were probably more injuries, an idea he got from being Jim’s roommate for even only a few months and the fact that the other guy had pushed Jim into the edge of one of the tables and knocked him down at least once before Leonard stepped in. 

Jim stumbled, nearly making Leonard lose his grip, but neither said a word. Jim’s silence was starting to worry him, usually the kid just about never shut up. 

After what felt like an eternity, the two arrived at their dorm building. The halls were quiet, except for one of the nearby rec rooms (that no one was technically supposed to be in at this hour, but it was a rule everyone disregarded), where, by the sounds of it, someone had gotten their hands on some centuries-old video games. A short ride upstairs and some fumbling at the door later, Leonard found himself depositing Jim on his bed and turning to grab the first aid kit he kept in his nightstand. Jim still hadn’t said anything, and he was just staring blankly into space. Now Leonard was really getting worried. 

He let himself go on autopilot, pulling bandages and scanners out of his kit, fixing any minor wounds he finds. He tells Jim to take his shirt off so he can fix the bruises on his back, and worries even more when Jim doesn’t even smirk or say ‘if you wanted me out of my clothes that much, you should have just asked’ so that Leonard could grumble back. He just mechanically pulls off the shirt, wincing slightly at the pain the movement causes, and Leonard goes about fixing up the newly revealed wounds. When he’s done, he puts his supplies away and sits next to Jim. Neither of them say a word, and the silence hangs heavy in the room.

Jim’s voice cuts through the still air, quieter and more emotionless than Leonard’s ever heard it.

“Today’s my birthday. It’s also the anniversary of my dad’s death.”

Leonard isn’t sure how to respond to that. Jim just sighs and rests his head on Leonard’s shoulder, and the two sit in silence for the rest of the night.


	3. a flight, a fear, and a moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim pilots a shuttle, Bones almost has a panic attack, and then they have a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I want to have at least three of the next chapters already written before I post more, but the one I was writing was kicking my ass. I hope this makes up for it.
> 
> Also: I completely rewrote this one like twenty minutes ago, so some of it may be a little off (I hope it isn't, but you never know). There was a lot more angst in the original, but i didn't really like the way it turned out. I might take that same concept and make it it's own story, but for now this is what y'all get. Enjoy!

It’s a horribly beautiful day outside, and Jim is piloting a shuttle. That in itself would be mildly worrisome, because the kid always managed to get himself hurt, but right now it’s so much worse. Because not only is Jim piloting a shuttle, but Leonard has the privilege of being a passenger, and he hadn’t gotten the chance to get even a little drunk beforehand to help himself deal with his damn fear.

The familiar coil of anxiety is making itself very well known in Leonard’s chest, and while he’s trying his hardest to ignore it, it’s rapidly building into full-blown panic. And panic was exactly what Jim (and Leonard) don’t need right now, while they’re several hundred feet in the air. Any wrong movement could send them to a million kinds of horrible deaths. The weather could change suddenly, some conveniently vital piece of the engine could fail, a piece of debris could crack the hull and kill them in a brilliant fireball, a- 

Those were not thoughts he needed to be having right now. They would be fine. Shuttle crashes were almost as rare as getting hit by a meteor. 

Shit. He did not want to be thinking about meteors right now. 

His point is that shuttle crashes were rare. Doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

He feels the craft begin to descend slowly, and he’s hit with a simultaneous bout of relief and panic. The trip’s almost over. His feet were going to be on solid ground soon. He knows that, as a Starfleet officer, he’s going to have to get used to flying, but right now, he was too panicked to care.

He’s violently ripped from his thoughts when the shuttle suddenly drops much faster than strictly necessary, and Leonard’s stomach lurches violently. His breath quickens, and he feels himself quickly losing control of it. His thoughts keep spiraling out of control, back to horrible deaths, burns, broken bodies- 

He really didn’t need to be going down that road right now. Right now, he just needed to focus on breathing in a mostly-normal pattern so he could just get through this damn flight. In. Hold. Out. Repeat. He focuses on the breaths, not thinking about where he is, waiting. What feels like years later, the shuttle finally comes to a stop on its designated landing pad, and Leonard begins to fight the straps keeping him in the seat. A moment of panicked fumbling passes, and Leonard is stumbling onto blessedly solid ground, breathing freely for the first time since this damn flight started. Jim steps out of the shuttle and stands next to him.

He zones out during the instructor's comments to Jim about the flight, noticing just then how tired he was. He can feel the exhaustion down to his - dare he say it - bones. As soon as they get dismissed, he turns and begins to briskly walk back to his room, ignoring the concerned “Bones?” from behind him. He just wants to get back to his bed and sleep forever.

Jim must have jogged to catch up, because the next “Bones?” is a lot softer and a lot closer. Leonard sees the red-clad figure of his best friend on his left out of the corner of his eye, and he turns his head slightly to make eye contact with Jim. Some of his tiredness must be poking through, because the next words out of Jim’s mouth are a lot closer to what Leonard actually wants to hear. “Let’s get back to the dorm, yeah?” Leonard only nods.

They trudge back to their room, and the moment the door opens, Leonard is collapsing on the bed. He sighs, letting the blanket and pillow ground him. Jim is somewhere in the room, shuffling around the room. After a minute, he finally settles on his own bed.

They stay like that for quite some time- Jim doing homework quietly on his bed and Leonard letting the knot that had built itself in his chest loosen and untangle, and the thoughts swirling in his head fade into breathing. Somewhere along the line, his racing mind leads him to the welcome embrace of sleep, and Leonard drifts off.

When he wakes, the room is dark and Jim’s snores can be heard from across the room. Leonard shifts to look at the chronometer next to his bed, and approximately every damn joint in his body pops or cracks in some way, causing him to groan in exasperation. 

“Jesus, you sound like an old man,” Jim’s voice is exactly what Bones was not expecting to hear, and it causes him to jump slightly. He sends a glare in his roommate’s direction, but remembers the room is pitch-black, so instead he simply says, “Shut up, Jim.” Jim just chuckles.

Leonard waits for either himself or Jim to go back to sleep, but neither seems to be happening, so instead he makes a stupid joke about how messed up his sleep schedule is going to be, and Jim laughs halfheartedly, drifting off slightly as he begins his next approach.

“Are you alright? You never go to bed without at least attempting to get some work done, especially since you have tests coming up.”

Bones decides that even if he can’t sleep, he’s still too tired to really sugarcoat anything. That doesn't mean he doesn't have the energy to deflect, even if only slightly. So he almost-jokingly says, “Well, fighting off panic attacks does that to ya.” If Jim catches the deflection, he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he lets out an almost painfully humorless chuckle, before lapsing back into silence.

They both listen to the quiet for a few minutes before Jim starts again, voice barely above a whisper. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Leonard genuinely contemplates the question- does he? Images of patients, rushed into his care, broken and bleeding, crying out for loved ones flood his mind, and he shakes his head in an attempt to clear them out. He could tell Jim, but his fear was an old one, only strengthened by what he’d seen, and the poor kid had dealt with enough in his life. He didn’t need all of Leonard’s problems on top of his own. 

“There’s not really much to tell. I’ve always been scared of flying, it’s not anything new,” The argument isn’t very strong, both of them know it, but Jim lets it go, instead trying a different route.

“Would you like a hug, then? You looked like you could use one earlier.” That one question sends Leonard on a small moment of self-questioning. When was the last time he’d had a hug? Honestly he didn’t know. Probably the last time he’d seen Joanna. He nods.

Jim moves across the room, sits next to Leonard on the bed, and pulls him into a warm hug. Leonard actually feels himself relaxing as he returns it. 

They don’t talk about that night, but Jim offers to help him conquer his phobia, and Leonard accepts partially because he knows he needs to, and partially because Jim looked so excited at the prospect of being helpful to somone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending to this gave me no end of trouble, and in the end I kind of gave up. I should be updating soon, but I make no promises.


	4. Jim and Bones go out to eat, a revelation ensues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a small moment (there's a dash of angst, but honestly it's too short for it to be more than that. this is mostly joy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long for me to update this! i've been trying to stay at least three chapters ahead, so i always have a backlog, but i lost my motivation for a few weeks, and now i've technically only written like half of a chapter, but i think it's enough to update anyway. enjoy!

He would never admit it, but one of his favorite moments of his friendship with Jim was the first time the two of them decided to go and have lunch off campus. Not because the food was good or anything exciting happened, but because it was the first time they had worn civvies since the day they met. 

They had agreed to go get food at some hold-in-the-wall burger joint during their lunch hour, but Leonard had gotten caught up talking to some of the other cadets in his class and nearly forgot his plans. By the time he did remember, he was almost fifteen minutes late. He had rushed back to their dorm to drop off his things and change before nearly sprinting back out and to their meetup place. He had been scared that Jim had thought he’d forgotten, or that Jim wasn’t even there. When the place had finally come into view, Leonard practically ran inside.

He looked around the small restaurant and spotted Jim sitting in one of the booths, drinking a milkshake and looking horribly dejected. Guilt made itself home in Leonard’s chest as he walked over to where Jim was, apologies on his tongue. As he approached, Jim looked up and visibly brightened when he made eye contact with his friend.

“Sorry, Jim. I didn’t mean to be late,” he said.

“It’s fine, Bones. I was beginning to think you forgot.” his tone was lighthearted, but there was a horrible sincerity to his words.

“I don’t think I could forget you if I tried, kid. Your constant need for medical assistance would make sure of that,” Leonard teased, watching Jim begin to relax slightly. The two of them looked over the menu and quickly fell into an easy conversation.

It was actually halfway through their burgers and the most detailed story about a boring class that Leonard had ever heard when Jim suddenly stopped mid-sentence and gasped. Leonard grew concerned.

“What’s up?” he asked.

There was a childish glee in Jim’s face as he answered, “We match!” He pointed at the leather jacket Leonard had tossed on before leaving and his own, clearly excited. Relief flooded through Leonard, quickly replaced with equal parts exasperated and amused, and he let out a small chuckle.

“I guess we do, Jim.”

Most people would think the moment insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but there was something about the sheer glee on Jim’s face that Leonard was never going to forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my schedule is a mystery even to me- this fic will be finished, but i have no guarantees as to when

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone wondering- I took Jocelyn's maiden name and Clay's first name from the Jocelyn McCoy fandom wiki page. Also, I have no idea if anyone would still have phone numbers at all, but whatever.


End file.
